Tower breakage

[Hockeyguy1960]

Upon cleaning my 2015 Yamaha AR192 I noticed a tear in my tower on the drivers side…I’ve had the boat only 2 years and was told by a Yamaha dealer that it was probably caused by water frozen during the winter and then expanding…I’m curious about that because it seems the water would drain to the bottom of pipes…I’m thinking it could have been my marinas maintenance workers moving my boat around and bumped into or tore it open! Any thoughts or anyone have a problem with their ski tower breaking? I live in Georgia and it freezes occasionally in the wintertime…pic included

 

[kbell413]

You would have to get a lot of water in there to fill it enough to freeze and burst. The entire tube would need to be filled with water for it to burst upon freezing. I don't see how you could get that tube completely filled.

 

[ripler]

I agree the whole damn tube would need to be filled with water since the break is at the high point of the leg. From the pic it does look like the tower did rub against something, I would raise hell with the marina.

 

[Hockeyguy1960]

I thought so too…I dont even see how water could get in there…the dealer wanted me to buy a new tower says that happens all the time but I’m getting it welded by my aluminum welder…I will bring this to the Marina’s attention!

 

[zipper]

It does look like an ice expansion in an alumunum tube crack, but it is in the wrong place as @ripler stated. It is at the high point of that tube at the weld. Would expect it to be on the bottom of the tube. If it was full of water it would have cracked more linearly down the tube as freezing water would have expanded there too, kinda like a crack in a copper pipe that freezes. Hard to figure out how any worker could have caused this with the crack I see.

 

[Hockeyguy1960]

I don’t know either…the maintenance guys at the marina store boats and trailers in their maintenance yard which is surrounded by trees…maybe a limb fell on it or maybe the tower was weak to begin with and sudden movement by a fork lift cracked it…for the record I pulled very little last summer mostly just ran boat…

 

[ripler]

I would also check to see if the tower is still centered.

 

[zipper]

Idk, If the tube was full of water and cracked at the top, I would expect to see signs of moisture/water down in the rest of the tube unless it was removed or evaporated.

 

[haknslash]

I don’t think the entire tube or frame of the tower is “open”. It is basically tubing on tubing. There are pics in here of older boats and older towers that had the same thing happen from ice expansion.

 

[scokill]

That definitely looks like ice expansion and not from impact or external force. Just my 2 cents.

 

[RNYCLV]

Rough one, was the tower up or folded? If folded it could be impact from the top? I'm guessing....no proof.

 

[MidnightRider]

yeah hard to tell from the pic but it seems to me either the bottom of that tear got pushed in to cause it or the top of the tear got pushed out to cause it. If the bottom is pushed in, then something probably pushed against it from the outside. If the top is pushed out then it likely from expansion from the inside. Having said that I echo others in that the tear looks very much like a water freeze expansion damage but the location does seem a bit off for that.

 

[haknslash]

Here are a few of the threads about this happening. What some people do that live in such climates is to drill small holes under the tubes so that water can drain. Normally this was on the older 240/242 tower with the cross bracing but it can happen to any tower that gets water inside the tubing.

https://jetboaters.net/threads/cracked-tower-ice-2015-yamaha-ar210.22966/

https://jetboaters.net/threads/wake-tower-cross-beam-bending-ballooning.5119/page-3#post-453617

https://jetboaters.net/threads/2013-ar190-tower-question-suspected-damage.24603/#post-411646

https://jetboaters.net/threads/broken-weld-in-wake-tower.22273/#post-378200

 

[Sean R]

I've been in assy tooling, pretty much my whole working career and fabricators/welders always drill drain holes in closed welded tubing. Not just for water, but from what I understand any trapped gas.